Steven Schloeder

Steven Schloeder, Ph.D., AIA, specializes in Catholic church architecture in projects across the country. He is preparing a revised and expanded edition of his Architecture in Communion (Ignatius Press, 1998). His work and writings can be seen at www.liturgicalenvirons.com.

Articles by Steven Schloeder

Bereft of Imagery

Rudolf Schwarz is principally known as a church architect and mystic-poet-philosopher of sacred architecture.

Similis est Homini Patrifamilias

The attempts over the past century to find a contemporary architecture that can bear the weight of the Church’s sacramental vision have largely been unconvincing. Yet we are immediately confronted with both the Church’s own statement that she adopts no particular artistic style as her own…

A Whole Theatrical Presentation

Edmund Bishop made an interesting comment that during the Middle Ages, “the Blessed Sacrament reserved was commonly treated with a kind of indifference which at present would be considered to be of the nature of ‘irreverence,’ I will not say indignity.”

Domus Dei, Quae Est Ecclesia Dei Vivi: The Myth of the Domus Ecclesiae

In the last century we have seen a steady devolution of Catholic sacred architecture from grand and formal edifices to decidedly more residential scale and casual buildings. This was not accidental, but rather a deliberate effort to return to what mid-century liturgical scholars considered was the true character of Christian worship as understood in the early Church.